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Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

home-assistant.io

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Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#121

Post by roel_v »

rlpb wrote: post #47
xutopia wrote: post #2

So what would you recommend we use instead?

I've been looking into this but haven't committed to buying anything yet. Insteon doesn't seem well enough documented for third party controller implementations to me, although there are third party controllers available. Z-Wave (distinctively different from Zigbee) are the main contender for me right now. They seem to have the most interoperability but it is still a closed protocol in that documentation isn't freely…

Zwave works great. Ppl harp on it because it's not 'open' - yet there is an open source interface library, products from dozens of vendors interoperate great, there are many choices in software to drive it (open source and commercial with more features). Meanwhile the 'open' alternatives like zigbee don't interoperate at all (in practise), and that is if you can buy products that use it at all; and now there is this hue debacle. I never got what people like about hue at all; is it that they are just screw in and don't need further setup? Home automation is so much more than turning the lights on and off with your phone. That's trivial. It was clear from the start that hue would be very narrow in application. (I'll admit though that using lights to follow what's on the tv is cool, and not available in any other system I know of)

Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#122

Post by mynameisvlad »

balls187 wrote: post #75
soperj wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, lots of people don't avoid Apple.

> And yet, lots of people don't avoid Apple. On one hand, having to use Apple's proprietary Lightning connector sucks. On the other, having Apple be heavy handed with iOS App Store submissions means I have a higher confidence with my iOS Apps behaving compared to those I install on my Android Device.

The Lightning connector being proprietary does suck, but it's far and away the best mobile device connector I've used. It's small, easy to connect, and disconnects fairly easily on tug. USB-C is pretty nice, but for similar feature set you have a much larger connector.

Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#123

Post by mmanfrin »

roymurdock wrote: post #74
mdip wrote: post #35

I'll never understand why companies make such customer hostile decisions. I can't see any upside to this and I can't imagine what the discussion looked like when implementing this decision. My (admittedly cynical) guess is that it was one part "We're fielding a lot of support questions on products that aren't ours and our malfunctioning" and two parts "Our customers will be more motivated to buy Philips Hue products…

Boss: We introduced Hue back in 2012 w/ a plan to lose money the first 3 years developing the hub, subsidizing partners, and getting our product out in the market. Tell me we're seeing a positive ROI now. Hue PM: Hue is profitable, but only marginally so. Our strategy of making up the initial investment on $60 per bulb hardware is being undermined by cheap 3rd party lighting fixtures. Plus we're incurring costs respo…

s/Hue/Keurig 2

Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#124

Post by ocdtrekkie »

rlpb wrote: post #104
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

INSTEON documentation is actually somewhat decent. But fragmented. There's some great third party software, there's some great third party hardware. The thing that excited me into building my own INSTEON controller, is that you can directly control a light with about 20 lines of VB .NET code: http://madreporite.com/insteon/plm_basics.html Since I've been so unhappy with home automation software I've found, not doing…

> INSTEON documentation is actually somewhat decent. But fragmented. Any help, please? For example, let's say that I want to buy a USB interface (for a controller), a motion sensor, and a light switch (eg. a micro dimmer). I want to plug the USB interface into a modern Linux distribution and speak to it to read motion and the switch and control the light (and configure the switch to operate the light directly without…

I haven't tried to run the USB interface off of Linux, but I know they're supported pretty commonly, Mister House is a popular open source project that supports INSTEON on Linux. INSTEON PLMs like the 2413U are basically straight up USB-to-serial adapters, I think they might be supported directly in the Linux kernel, but I'm not positive.

The madreporite.com site I provided above has some decent documentation on device IDs and commands for a lot of devices. And as you can see from the link I provided, communication with the devices is generally pretty simple, 8 or 21 bytes sent over a serial connection, that can be written in a few lines of code. Receiving is a bit more complicated, but he provides sample code for that as well.

Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#125

Post by striking »

rlpb wrote: post #104
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

INSTEON documentation is actually somewhat decent. But fragmented. There's some great third party software, there's some great third party hardware. The thing that excited me into building my own INSTEON controller, is that you can directly control a light with about 20 lines of VB .NET code: http://madreporite.com/insteon/plm_basics.html Since I've been so unhappy with home automation software I've found, not doing…

> INSTEON documentation is actually somewhat decent. But fragmented. Any help, please? For example, let's say that I want to buy a USB interface (for a controller), a motion sensor, and a light switch (eg. a micro dimmer). I want to plug the USB interface into a modern Linux distribution and speak to it to read motion and the switch and control the light (and configure the switch to operate the light directly without…

I would hope that this website helps: http://www.linuxha.com/common/iplcd/

Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#126

Post by marcosdumay »

dperfect wrote: post #105

This problem isn't unique to Philips Hue, and I'm not sure Philips is necessarily a bad actor here. They are, after all, just acting in their best interest (and contrary to common belief, companies are self-interested; the customer's interests are important only so much as they serve the company's interests - for better or for worse). Perhaps the problem is more related to the ZigBee standard, or more specifically, w…

> and contrary to common belief, companies are self-interested; the customer's interests are important only so much as they serve the company's interests - for better or for worse

The idea used to be that companies served the consumer interest, and then billed some money in exchange.

When was it that companies become some self sustaining beings, with their own interest to be served? (Yeah, surely when they discovered they could take their clients as hostage. The question was rhetorical.)

Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#127

Post by cynicalkane »

rizwank wrote: post #98
soperj wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that deters me from ever writing something for iOS is that you have to own a Mac to do it.

I do not believe this is true now given all the third party frameworks available.

Apple's EULA actually requires you to build iOS software on a Mac. Using a PC is not a legal option.

Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#128

Post by ocdtrekkie »

rlpb wrote: post #104
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

INSTEON documentation is actually somewhat decent. But fragmented. There's some great third party software, there's some great third party hardware. The thing that excited me into building my own INSTEON controller, is that you can directly control a light with about 20 lines of VB .NET code: http://madreporite.com/insteon/plm_basics.html Since I've been so unhappy with home automation software I've found, not doing…

> INSTEON documentation is actually somewhat decent. But fragmented. Any help, please? For example, let's say that I want to buy a USB interface (for a controller), a motion sensor, and a light switch (eg. a micro dimmer). I want to plug the USB interface into a modern Linux distribution and speak to it to read motion and the switch and control the light (and configure the switch to operate the light directly without…

In my code development, I've definitely found some fun cases. i2cs (newer protocol) devices require a checksum, and they respond a bit differently in some cases. So for instance, my code that does a Product Data Request to get the model info for a device isn't working for i2cs devices right now. I'm still working on that, probably tonight.

I'd think something like Mister House would probably do the sort of simple case you need without figuring out all of the INSTEON protocol.

Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#130

Post by uremog »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #92
throwaway420 wrote: post #39

I was literally about to make a purchase but now I'll be considering other options. Good timing on your part hue. Do these idiot companies not learn anything from backlashes against Keurig and others?

Didn't Keurig just get valued at $shitton BN? If anything, this case teaches us that being customer-hostile and abusive pays off. Which is sort of obvious if you think about how the market works, but people still act surprised.

Maybe, but: http://www.reuters.com/article/keurig-green-results-idUSL3N1... Keurig quarterly profit falls 27 pct (Aug 2015)
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